Nine Crimes
by Momosportif
Summary: Lulz, I'm so excited! This is my first ambitious SamCham chpt fic! Set post series, the trio doesn't stay separated long, but Fuu's left her pugnacious bodygaurds to fend for their own against the trials of civilian life. Lovelies are Watanabe's! Enjoy!
1. Letters and Lethargy

The house felt so empty. The sun had at last become so bright he could no longer ignore it, and from that very moment he had felt it.

Empty.

Mugen scratched his jaw as he yawned, stumbling into the main room and a sea of suspended dust particles caught in the pools of light pouring through the open windows.

Things were sure fucked up if he was beginning to sense emptiness.

There was a small scrap of something - probably a food wrapping - lying on the table, as he expected. Rubbing a thoughtful finger along his much less sparse than he remembered stubble. A note, in painfully neat and purposefully large characters:

_Mugen: Out of rice again. No breakfast? I think not._

A smirk interfered with his methodic massaging at the last sentence. There was a special humor in the laconic language that he was sure only he could comprehend.

_Morning trip to market is well worth not starving. Sure you agree._

He turned the paper over as indicated by an arrow that belied the true sloppiness of the writer's usual scrawl, smile still holding the corners of his lips aloft.

_Don't burn down the house._

He rolled his eyes.

_Also- take Neko-san outside this time. I will be very angry if you forget. _

Mugen scowled at this last addition, but gave up feigning anger given the physical lack of his opponent as well as the redeeming conclusion.

_Your Jin_

_Also- if you remember, I will wash today._

_- Jin_

After re-reading it several times, more out of a need to wake up than out of a lack of understanding, Mugen returned the note to its place on the tabletop. He brought his arms over his head in a stretch, inhaling.

It was a pretty nice morning.

He released the held breath as he let his limbs fall and prowled back whence he came.

"Neko, neko, neko!"

* * *

Jin shook his head gently in an attempt to clear his bangs from his line of vision and instinctively made to push up his recently lost glasses with a slender digit, stopping himself with a small mental reprimand.

As it turned out, they had been missing quite a few items the ronin found essential to a healthy and well-balanced diet- He stopped himself, brows furrowing and then evening to their usual angle of indention.

There was nothing wrong with this train of thought, he concluded, shifting the morning's purchases to save the unagi with an untimely encounter with the stone path that led out of town. It was merely an adjustment, a peculiar and unexpected adjustment, but a simple adjustment all the same. How strange, he reflected, that it was he, Jin, who was plodding down the road with an armful of groceries and not Fuu, who had always seemed indisputably destined to join the realm of housewives and was in fact now living life on the road in the exact manner Jin had predicted he himself would.

Then again, he made no attempt to pretend he understood the workings of the world.

And walking down the road with an armful of groceries was not at all a bad place to be.

He jostled the unagi into a more secure position again and shouldered his slipping kimono back into place as best he could.

The house was not too far off.

Dark eyes lifted from the path for the briefest possible interval in order to make an evaluation of the sky. Very good. Mugen would most definitely be up by now.

Mugen.

That was an unforeseen factor in the state of current events as well. Whether it was because they had both independently decided that the best way to ensure no one or nothing else would get the chance to take the other's life was to stick together, or because they really had nothing better to do and decided to give the civilian life a chance just for kicks, or even simply because the sex was _that_ good (this was definitely a component in Jin's decision making, though he'd fight Kagetoki again ten thousand before he let the vagrant know), they had wound up here. Living together on the outskirts of a small village around Nagasaki, eking out a bizarre existence as veritable mercenaries.

It had all been a chain of misunderstandings and coincidences: rolls of the die of fate. He had come to firmly believe that those die were loaded, but had yet to decide whether or not it was in his favor.

Either way, Jin had chanced upon the shack sometime shortly after the trio had parted ways; seen it over the roll of the slight hill he was currently mounting, slumped with a strange sort of jaunty pride atop a gentle slope. He might have passed the place entirely, however, had he not heard a feline yowl and been unexplainably compelled to investigate. One thing led to another, and by nightfall he was settled in with the slate colored cat he judiciously appelled Neko-san and was prepared to get a good night's rest in the stable and remarkably unperturbed shelter.

Of course, such a peaceful and uneventful evening was not so easily obtained for Jin. His repose was interrupted by the door being flung open and none other than Fuu, gagged and bound as she so often had been throughout their travels, along with another young woman were tossed to the floor. Their captors, however, did not follow but remained outside instead, preoccupied, Jin surmised as he was freeing the momentary damsels in distress by the source of a singular war cry:

"Give me back my money, you assholes!"

It did not take Jin long to piece together a plausible story- some bandits had robbed the insufferable vagrant and coincidentally picked up the danger-prone Fuu who had probably been in the company of the hapless third party female- yet another variation on an all too familiar theme. Needless to say it did not take more than the element of surprise and a few simple swipes of the katana to remedy the situation and earn Mugen's wrath for taking his kill. No further dialog had been necessary to provoke a fight between the ronin and the vagabond, but the eager to meet blades were not even granted one pass before a mob of men barreled in between them and into the house while a bespectacled middle-aged man threw himself at Mugen's feet and began warbling praises.

Jin heaved a sigh of checked relief as the very yard in which his recollections were set at last came into view. When all was said and done, the young female in tow had been revealed to be the daughter of the local officiary; she had been on her way home from a neighboring town when she met Fuu and offered to put her up at her father's home for as long as necessary after hearing Fuu's synopsis of recent events. The duo never made it home, however, because an unruly gang of bandits who had recently been plaguing the country sides by pretending to be checkpoint officers had taken them hostage, aware of the young woman's status. It jus so happened that Mugen had recently fallen victim to their checkpoint act and would have been none the wiser if he hadn't overheard one of the gang members boasting under the influence of libation shortly after. Never one for subtlety, he had immediately given chase and had apparently caught up with them on the same hill Jin was currently mounting. The shack, it turned out, had been one of their local hideouts, thus explaining its exceptional structural state.

In gratitude for the disposal of the assailants as well as for the rescue of his daughter, the town officiary offered Mugen, Jin, and Fuu the cottage and associated property with the added request that they work as sort of village guards as the town really lacked any formally trained police force and had only the small band of volunteers accompanying him. Jin had been prepared to turn the man down, as had been Mugen, he was positive, but the final part of the deal turned out to be not only a none-too shabby paycheck, but also a pre-paid budget on all purchases made in the town market.

At last, Jin reached the top of the mild slope he'd stood on that night and opened the short gate with his back in order to protect his load, courtesy of the bargain that had sealed his current fate. Neko-san took him by surprise, trotting up with a salutary meow in order to deliver affectionate collisions of furry head and slim ankles.

Jin paused, recollections evaporating abruptly.

Mugen had let the cat out. Just like he'd asked.

The only release of absolute delight and pleasure was in the speed of the steps that brought him to the door, and even then there were very few, if any, people still among the living who would have caught this expression of well-checked emotion.

"Mugen."

The statement sounded quieter than he had intended in the furniture-less expanse, but was as successful as he'd hoped in bringing out his housemate. Mugen stood in the doorway between the two rooms and they studied each other for a few beats: Mugen, hair exceptionally disheveled, apparently awoken from a nap, Jin looking expectant but uncertain of what to do now that the requested person was present.

The vagrant solved the silence by letting a smirk slide across his long lips and then propel him across the living space. He improvised with a kiss on the jaw that made Jin stiffen.

"Hey, baby."

"Hm."

He stepped back and eyed the laconic ronin curiously.

Jin weighed the significance of this greeting.

"I'm hungry." Mugen remarked flatly, trying to keep the conversation moving towards concrete results.

Jin decided to not read too much into it.

"Hm."

He took the few steps necessary to reach the corner of the house dedicated to meal preparation and began arranging his ingredients.

Mugen let his eyes linger on the navy back for a few more moments, forming his own evaluation of events, and then went to lean in the open doorframe, looking out to the bright sky over bright land. He listened to Jin carefully locating one of his many simple recipes from the old woman at the produce stand.

His cooking still had a ways to go.

He waited a few seconds for Jin to get started, well aware of the intense level of concentration called for by the task, but finally decided to spill his news sooner rather than later.

"Talk to anyone in town?"

"Mm. No. I listened to the men who smoke by Baa-san's shop though. There's trouble on the road again."

"A new group, eyeh?"

"I thought so too. But now I think perhaps it's that textile clan from the south again."

"Eh. They're sure some desperate bastards…"

"You were sleeping?"

"Eyeh?"

"You were sleeping, yes?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah," he waved the air, as if batting down the inquiry. "Yeah, I was… still not sure what to do with myself all day…"

"I know."

He cut a glance back to the kneeling ronin on the off chance there would be some physical manifestation of clarification on the latest mysterious comment, but the hunched shoulders remained silent on the issue.

They'd gotten off topic. He tried again.

"Fuu headed south, right?"

"East, I think."

"Oh. She tell you where she was going?"

"No. You?"

"Ha! Fuck no! All I know is what she told both of us that night we found this place…"

Jin froze for the slightest increment of time, but recovered seamlessly, struggling to cut the unagi correctly.

This was the day, he was sure. It would come out right today.

"That she wasn't going to settle down yet and all that… something about 'discovering myself' or whatever crap it was…"

"What are you trying to say, Mugen."

Mugen felt his neck turn against his bidding to take in the source of the question turned demand. No one could suck the thirst for knowledge out of a question like Jin. He turned his mild fear into aloofness.

"Exactly what I'm saying, jackass…"

"Hf."

Jin did not seem to be fooled so he plowed on for the sake of his own self-image, saying lightly, "We got a letter from her today… that chick's punky brother ran it up while you were out."

"Oh."

Mugen whirled at this completely colorless response to his shocking announcement, but his ire was only temporary. A laugh leaked through the sneer of disbelief.

"Couldn't even pretend to be surprised, eyh?"

"I am surprised."

"Eyh!"

"What did it say?"

"Said she's coming back soon. Just to pass by, she said, but she's got some big news apparently-"

"Oh!"

"What's wrong?"

Mugen took a step closer instinctively but then stopped himself, unsure if this emergency was one he had a place intervening in or not.

Jin was slumped over his cutting boards, exuding despair to the highest degree. Mugen took another cautious step- Jin stood suddenly and had crossed the room before his unsettled companion could react.

"Jin!" Mugen sprang to life as soon as the ronin crossed the threshold. They nearly collided as the bespectacled mystery on legs ducked back into the house to grab his hat from its place on the wall.

Dark eyes met dark eyes: one pair incredulous and the other stony in order to conceal intense embarrassment.

Jin looked away at last and placed his straw sun-shield atop his glossy head.

"I noticed Neko-san was out. I'll be washing the dishes as promised."

Speechless, Mugen watched his stoic samurai make record time reaching the gate. A pale hand forced the old, worn wood to open, but then paused.

Maybe he should re-examine. Better to read too deeply and find nothing than to skim and miss so much.

Besides, it was only fair to return the favor.

The sun was so bright it could be playing tricks on the face beneath the golden brim, but Mugen swore he saw the distress and self-admonishment he'd spotted before in Jin's stern and delicate features as he turned and explained in a clear but strained voice, "I forgot the rice."

* * *

**Author's Note**: Crime Number One? Don't forget the one thing you went to the store for, Jin! XD

Holla anything you got to me in a review, mkay? Hope you enjoyed! Also, if you catch any inaccuracies involving their appearances from the ending of the series (ex. JIN HAZ NO GLASSEZ PLZ???!!?) please tell me...I started writing this before actually seeing the end of the series. -stupid smile- I think I caught most of it, but still...help a sistah out. ;3

-bows-

-S


	2. Appeal and Appelations

"Mmoow? Mmooooow?"

"Hm?"

Jin looked up from the dark garment drowning under his pale grasp. Neko-san was making his way down from the house, stepping slowly but purposefully in a way that made the ronin feel something was terribly awry.

He lifted his kimono from the stream and hastily spread it on the nearby hamper in time to receive the cat with a stroke over his gray head.

"Mmmow?"

"Hm."

"Prrrrmow."

"_Hm_."

The steely eyes darkened in suspicion. This howl was one of need.

Jin rose to his feet.

"Mmow! Mmow!"

Being certain to avoid stepping on the still mewling feline, Jin made his way back to the house at a moderate but foreboding pace. When Jin reached the gate Neko-san cut in front of his sandaled feet and clawed at the decrepit planks with a frenzy that caused the samurai to pause before pushing it open.

As soon as the smallest increment of space appeared between the post and gate door, Neko-san burst through and slunk silently but speedily into the house. With a quiet equal to his original co-habitant's Jin passed through the entrance in time to see the intent cat pawing open the door to the bedroom.

What could possibly be so exceptional about the bedroom?

Wasting no time on pointless pondering, Jin crossed the main room to finish his leader's work and slid the door open enough to admit his more substantial frame.

"Mmow! Mmow!"

The tone shifted from urgent to unmistakably proud.

Jin squinted into the darkness towards the cat's shadowy form, straining against the limitations placed on him by nature only to jerk back in surprise as soon as he was able to discern what the cat was doing.

Neko-san had caught something.

"Jin? Hey, Jin!"

Something big.

"Eyeh!"

"Hp!"

"The fuck happened to you?"

"Oh."

The taller man cut his eyes to the right of his genuinely concerned addressee in order to compose the features he hadn't realized had slipped into an evidently appalling expression.

"Jin, what-" Mugen cut himself off in impatience and stepped past the still neutralizing ronin to see what was amiss for himself. "Oiyeah?"

Neko-san walked up to the vagrant's far spaced feet, every movement a reflection of self-appreciation to the highest degree and, and deposited a large clump of what had formerly been some kind of monstrously proportioned rodent.

"Hey!"

To Jin's ill-concealed revulsion, Mugen hoisted the furry sack of bones with an expression of mild consternation that slid smoothly into one of a delight to rival the now purring puss.

"Look at that, Jin! The cat caught a rat!"

"That's a rat? It looks like it could have just as easily killed Neko-san…"

"I know!"

In a never before witnessed display of affection for his non-human co-habitant, Mugen crouched to ruffle the ashy fur. "You're such a good kitty, mm-hm!"

"Mugen…"

"Who knew you were such a useful little kitty, hmm? Who knew, who knew, huh?"

"Did you feed Neko-san today?"

"Ehhh…" The familiar conversation staller was, as Mugen was well aware, more than enough of an answer for Jin, but this did by no means stop him from continuing. "No, I didn't…"

"_Hm_."

"Look, you tight ass!"

Mugen took his new favorite roommate into his arms as he stood to confront the disapproving Jin with a lax scowl.

"The cat can catch his own damn food, anyway. We're going to make him super fat if we keep shoveling him extra shit he doesn't need."

In search for a more exciting reaction than the never-ending natural frown, Mugen hoisted Neko-san, one hand supporting his rear and the other under his two dangling front limbs, and then waved him up and down parallel to his own head while adding in the low and coo-laced voice he used to address the cat, "See? He's a fat little kitty, already! Look at his little poochy tummy. Poochy, poochy, pooch!"

"Please take that outside."

Obviously unmoved by this presentation of evidence, Jin made to exit the bedroom and get back to his all important laundry, subconsciously hyper-alert to anything that even remotely resembled some other hapless victim who was now in the rodents' other realm.

"And when you've disposed of it somewhere far from the house, come back and feed Neko-san his tuna. He is a growing cat and requires nourishment."

"Huuh!"

Mugen heaved a sigh of frustration at this refusal to bend, or at the very least compromise, and atypically opted not to fight this particular battle. There would be other, more worthy brawls, he was sure, and besides it wasn't a total loss. He'd finally discovered some value to the cat besides simply keeping his feet warm on occasion and tripping Jin almost any time he tried to leave the house.

It was the bossing around that was a problem. He couldn't just submit to every bitchy command the tight ass gave.

Mugen, cat in one arm and recently deceased prey in the other, shouldered out the front door after the sullen subject of his suppositions.

At least the bastard had said please, he mused. That was certainly progress.

Once out the gate, the two men split ways, Jin heading down to his hamper by the creek and Mugen wondering off towards the back of the shack in search of where the minimum of "far from the house" was. About twenty some half-assed strides Mugen let gravity claim the corpse and then allowed his recent feline friend to leave the crook of his arm, curious to see if he would consume his catch. This seemed to be the cat's intentions exactly.

For a few moments, the vagrant simply stood there watching the cat go between distinguished and destructive as he pawed at the rat's guts.

It was kind of cool, kind of pretty in a weird way.

Mugen dropped to his ass with practiced nonchalance. He'd been tired, which was strange since he wasn't really doing much these days. It was a strange kind of tired to start with. Like the world was just going to swallow him, fold its hills up while he was sitting on one and then just turn inside out a couple times until he disappeared.

He ran a hand through the ends of his hair, resting his chin on a bony knee.

Maybe he wasn't doing enough, just allowing himself to slip away into the flow of the universe.

"Ehhhhyeh…."

He put his forehead in between both knees and pulled up little fistfuls of grass until a quiet mewl prompted him to look up.

Jin was standing right in front of him blocking the sun. Neko-san squeezed between their feet, stepping neatly over each limb while rumbling with a deep purr.

"I considered your point while I was continuing the laundry. There is some wisdom in it."

Mugen squinted but said nothing. There was more coming, he could tell by the way Jin's lips came back together. The perpetual frown was too light to be permanent.

"I believe it will suffice to put out food only every other day."

"'Kay."

"Okay."

Jin stepped carefully to the side so Mugen could stand and then began the short trek back to the house, this time side by side but with a comfortable distance between them.

"Fuu'd still feed the cat…"

"Hm."

"She's probably going to say that we're starving it."

"I wouldn't be surprised."

"Wanna bet on it?"

Jin held the gate open as Mugen slunk in, grinning semi-discretely.

"No."

"Eyh!"

They reached the door and stopped.

This type of thing always happened- they hadn't quite figured out who should go first (or maybe who should go last). So they stalled.

"Ey… Hey, you know, Fuu's probably going to get pissed if we don't name the cat."

"Hm? What do you mean? The cat has a name."

"No, the whole 'Neko-san' thing's not going to fly."

Jin rested his back on the door frame, studying a spot on the ground.

"I see. We have become quite intimate. We could change it to Neko-kun-"

"No, no, no, Jin."

Mugen mirrored the ronin's stance, crossing his arms and shaking his head at the genuinely earnest suggestion.

"That's such a guy-name, you know?"

Every inch of Jin's features stated that he, in fact, did not.

"I mean-well, let's see… how to put this…"

Mugen untucked a hand from the opposite elbow to stroke his sparsely stubbled chin.

"I don't have any problem with the name. Makes sense, easy to say, no one's going to forget it, but Fuu would want something… fluffy, you know?"

This time when Mugen cut his eyes to read what he could of the face angled slightly towards him, there were some definite signs of comprehension.

"Yes, I see what you mean… something sweet and warm that reflects both Neko-san's personality as well as his relationship to his immediate universe."

Mugen blinked and then jostled this unnecessarily elaborate translation of what he'd just said out of his mind with a quick flop of the head and a closeted, "Yeah…" meant both as a possible affirmation and a cue that he thought Jin was going a little overboard.

Unfortunately, the intended receptor of this surprisingly subtle social hint was too deep in thought to take note. Mugen shifted his arms and studied the land beyond the front yard with a half-lidded, vacant gaze. Had he not been preoccupied, he might have taken the golden opportunity to enter the house without any unnatural conflict of consequence.

"Makoto."

Jin's solemn voice quietly dropped the three syllables into Mugen's silence.

"Eyeh?"

"It's a part of the Bushido," Jin explained, now looking out to the place Mugen's eyes had just devoured with a checked curiosity and anticipation. "It means 'utter sincerity' or 'truthfulness'."

Mugen slunk further into the stiff embrace of the front door as his conversation partner removed his weight from the opposite side.

"Speaking of which, Makoto has revealed such a truth to us today."

Sensing an explanation, the vagrant simply waited- a skill he was exercising and honing quite often recently, as Jin tucked a hand into the folds of the garment he wore underneath the currently absent kimono and produced his minute purse from which he counted out several coins.

At last, Mugen's attention paid off as he was graced with the ever hard to get full frontal turn and then the coins placed firmly in his palm.

"And that is that one can acquire his own food. I'm tired of eating our cooking."

Tan fingers closed on the dull currency with a note of firm concurrence. Mugen couldn't agree with that last bit more.

"Go to town and get yourself something for lunch and dinner. I need to finish the laundry."

Business evidently concluded, Jin slid out of his sandals and into the house in a single, smooth motion.

"Mmow."

Neko-san- or more accurately, Makoto- came trotting out of nowhere and followed Jin, leaving Mugen alone with his money and his thoughts.

With a shrug, he pocketed the change and strolled towards the gate but halted after a few strides in order to sprint back to the door.

"Oi! When d'ya want me to be home?"

A quiet came as the initial response, but was quickly replaced by the reappearance of Jin himself, the bedding draped in his arms.

He stared down his attending addressee for a few more tense beats before stating in a remarkably revealing voice trimmed with transparent terseness, "Just come back."

* * *

**Author's Note**: Crime Number Two? FEED THE CAT, MUGEN!!! :O As usual, holla back with any comments enlightening, condemning, delighting, or otherwise. ;3


	3. Baths and Bedtime Battles

The moon was waxing - somewhere past a perfect semi-circle, but not yet approaching the rotundness poets and lovers paid particular attention - but in the cloudless night it was bright enough to fool a tired pair of eyes into believing it to be full.

Jin was not yet that weary, though he was getting close.

The gentle wind that had yet to discover an escape from its hilly cage seemed exceptionally chilly on his recently warmed skin. Slender and stiff fingers fumbled his kimono further up a hunched shoulder.

Time had a way of eluding him in the baths.

After a quiet dinner and a respectful visit to the woman at the produce stand, Jin had wondered around in search of news and come up empty-handed. At that juncture he had considered simply returning home and attempting to sleep off the creeping anxiety brought on by a lack of work and a surplus of tranquility, however, not twenty paces from the town gate he had happened to catch sight of the rosy back of the insufferable vagrant in the shadows of an alley. After pausing for a moment to consider all of his options, Jin had made towards the alley with the intention of catching Mugen's attention and lessening the frequent loneliness of the walk home. A slight shift in position on the preoccupied Mugen's part allowed Jin to see further into the narrow, previously eclipsed passage.

There was a woman. Of course there was a woman.

Any desire to return home instantly evaporated under the heat of a peculiar and sickening burning sensation in his chest. It was the magistrate's daughter, the girl Fuu had been captured with so many weeks ago. While the samurai stood frozen in the street struggling to identify and quench the new scalding emotion, he was noticed by the young woman and pointed out to Mugen, who turned to find a steadily retreating back he'd been acquainted with since the day they first met.

An abrupt clarity and purpose soothed whatever was raging its way to his guts and Jin knew instantly that his problems, if there even were any, would be instantly solved by a visit to the baths. Now, plodding along the stony road home, it was quite clear that the visit had been a tad on the long side and he was now paying for it with an ill reaction to the nippy night air. For a time that numbered well beyond those worth counting, Jin stubbornly tugged his kimono up against the will of gravity.

What would Fuu say?

Really, this was something beneath him, Jin blearily and begrudgingly reflected. While childish jealousy- if that had indeed been the molten feeling he'd encountered that evening- was absolutely in Mugen's character, he had truly thought himself immune from such ridiculous diseases of the mind and body. As the two were connected, the steamy bath had been, as he'd predicted, the perfect antidote to such spiritual poison, but still. He was disappointed, and moreover felt that that little bit of Fuu that kept house within him was disappointed too.

There were two different prompts for his inner-Fuu's reaction: either he should have been unaffected by the idea of Mugen simply being who he was and taking a woman to an alleyway, should have been completely comfortable with this entirely unsurprising constant of their rapport, or he should have been open and aggressive enough in the first place to make Mugen discover that he no longer had need for other sources of physical pleasure.

He scowled deeply at this train of thought, eyes screwed shut to the path his feet already knew so well.

Friend was good, friend was fine. Friend was not at all a bad place to be. But he had been developing a feeling of ownership, at the very least responsibility, for Mugen.

His Mugen.

It made sense if he worked backwards from where they were now to the first time they crossed blades. Though not in so many words, they had essentially promised their lives to each other in promising one another their deaths.

"Hmm."

Thinking of it in those terms made it sound like he and the reproachable creature were married. At last the shack, looking every bit as bitter with the weather as Jin was, appeared over the rolls of the hills. All he had to do now was make it through the gate, into the front door, across the living room and then land somewhere close to the futon. The world would be a simpler place in the morning, he was sure.

But what would Fuu say?

These were the types of things only she could properly understand, and, Jin realized as he made several futile attempts to unlatch the gate before finally meeting success and pushing through, he did not have long to wait before this question could be answered.

The door responded much more smoothly to his weight and within seconds he was across the floor and sliding open the entrance to the sleeping space. Mugen was where he'd expected him to be, splayed out across the entire futon with no regard for the firm and clear explanation of the "sides rule" Jin and introduced on night one. It was comfortingly constant (if obnoxious) ritual rule breaching.

The ronin kneeled at the one corner not occupied by one of Mugen's limbs in order to carefully tuck his hair over a shoulder as a safeguard against accidental pulling and then folded himself into the available space.

* * *

What started out as a light touch turned into a determined clench and Jin's eyes were jarred open as he was forced to his back. Infallible survival instincts functioning even under the suffocating presence of sleep, Jin became aware enough to react in time to use the momentum of his attacker's movement to roll them both to their sides and then find his feet. Although his vision was far from adjusted, the slight sheen of moonlight painting the bedroom was enough to illuminate his enemy.

Mugen wasted no time on standing, but flopped to his shoulders and came with his legs aloft and spinning in pursuit.

Unable to block such accelerated blows, the bleary ronin did nothing but stagger backwards across the cot and onto the floor where his back me the wall sooner than expected. More by chance than on purpose, Jin dodged the final flailing kick by tripping over his hakama and crawling until he found the door with his bent head. The draft from a series of kicks that failed to connect prompted Jin to neglect his now throbbing cranium in favor of using both hands to fling the slidable roadblock ajar and then stumble into some semblance of a defensive stance in time to catch a downward slice of the leg and jerk Mugen off balance.

In the seconds it took for the verily thrown offense to walk Jin's deflection out, a dim mantra embedded itself in Jin's immediate train of thoughts: get in close, get in close, get in close.

Still operating virtually blindly, Jin advanced in order to limit Mugen's range and therefore his possible means of attack. Clearly his adversary sensed his strategy as he abridged a second barrage of kicks by doubling their distance with a backwards collapse-turned-handstand and then roughly slid open the second panel that separated the two rooms and escaped into the bedroom.

Anthem of attack still pounding along with the lingering sting of his collision with the door, Jin paused in his pursuit to procure a suitable weapon in the stead of his katana, which he was vaguely aware would not easily be acquired at this point.

Moments later found Mugen throwing himself into a backwards bridge, barely missing the shaft of their broom as Jin swept it in a low arc through the air. The now disadvantaged combatant remedied his situation by coming up to his squatting battle stance sheet in hand. As Mugen ducked the following swipes of the domestic tool-turned-weapon, he managed to twist one end of the bedding into a tight, thin whip-like defense mechanism.

The next slash of the broom handle was caught by the semi-taut rope which Mugen then attempted to loop around the hilt, forcing Jin to retreat or lose his temporary weapon. A quickly tied knot transformed the sheet into a cloth-flail and with the weighted end Mugen lashed out wildly, backing Jin towards the wall for a second time.

The ronin halted at the end of the futon and purposefully allowed the broom to become entangled in the sheet, looping around it multiple times with the momentum of the blow. Mugen growled waking Jin from his brief stupor of surprise.

He tugged the joined weapons towards him with as much force as his still slumbering muscles allowed, brining Mugen along. Just as the two midnight combatants were about to collide, Mugen brought the bulk of the sheet that had hung loose and untwisted up between far-spaced hands, then over and around Jin, yanking them chest to chest.

Before Jin's mind could process this new development in the battle, he found himself on the futon, eye to eye with the panting vagrant.

The fight was over.

Jin wiggled sharply to create enough space for him to fold his hands between them and felt their heartbeats continue the duel. Mugen swallowed and glared, making sure the silent samurai was looking at him.

"I wasn't doing anything with that chick, Jin."

The addressed party allowed a feeling to slit through his Bushido like the light cut through the curtains, just this once, just tonight. Because the moon was almost full and he was still tired. Mugen watched the deeply set scowl soften.

"Okay."

"Not that I wouldn't, but the idea didn't occur to me until just now."

Honesty was always (sometimes) the best policy.

"Hm."

"She was giving me a letter from Fuu and asking me about a side job. That's all."

"What did the letter say?"

"Tch!" Mugen released the sheet holding them together, but neither one moved. "Just a sentence or two saying she'll be here in exactly five days. Crazy bitch…"

"Hm. It's good to know precisely. We can get the house ready and be sure to buy extra groceries."

"Ey."

"Is this why you woke me up?"

Jin rolled to his other side, settling in to return to sleep. His eyes had been closed for mere fractions of seconds when an intruding hand brushed his ankle and then firm and unbending fingers took a hold of one of his feet.

"Nope."

Instinctively, he rolled over to right this incredible wrong only to find his back to the futon with Mugen on top of him for the second time that night.

"I woke you up 'cause your feet were cold."

"I see."

"I fixed it."

"Hm."

Round two would have no losers.

* * *

**Author's Note**: Crime Number Three? Cold feet, Jin! (though my at-home-beta believes misleading your housemate by conversing with women in alleyways and ignoring the "sides rule" were both much bigger crimes...I agree, but it was Jin's turn to be at fault XD)

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Homicidal urges? Put it to me in a review, my peeps!

A thousand thank yous for reading!!!

-bows-

-S


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